Thursday, July 17, 2008

Why blog?

This Jesse Stay guest post on Louis Gray's blog brings up a lot of good points: To Blog, or Not to Blog - That is the Question. He basically goes through a very short list of things that he considers worthy enough to warrant a blog posting. His bottom line:

Post only when it is something that educates, or brings original news to your readers

Seriously, how many of us bloggers are in a position to be "breaking" original news? (Which is exactly why the A-list is not dead.) Occasionally I write what might be considered an "educational" piece, but to be honest most of those are so long that people won't read them. Most long posts I write have never seen the light of day. They can't get past my DW's smell test.

So Jesse's post struck a cord. If we can express 95% of what we have to say using these other forms of communication-- why bother with the 5%? If there are no other reasons to blog than what he lists: original news and education, then maybe blogging is something that has outlived its usefulness?

Perhaps it is time for many of us to move on to other forms of expression? I've noticed that lots of people who I subscribe to are posting less-and-less. Perhaps we're seeing the end of the blogging era.

6 comments:

Kevin, all excellent points. I don't think blogging's entirely dead, but if you don't have time to deal with it, the other options available may just be sufficient for most people's purposes. The regular web user can now gain a presence online without having a huge blog to do it with IMO.

I have to admit I'm a bit torn. I really like the lite-weight and conversational nature of the new formats. On the other hand, I do have slightly over 200 regular readers and feel some responsibility. They must get something from this blog if they keep coming back. Dunno.

It'd be easier to leave blogging if I thought everyone was migrating to say FriendFeed. Might be a little too early yet, but at some point I see most of us needing to pull the plug.

It may be the end of *a* blogging era but I don't think that it's the end of *the* blogging era. I think that the types of blogs and bloggers is undergoing a change. For example, I saw a suggestion in this week's Cary News about blogging your pregnancy and then starting a Mommy blog. Breaking news? Hardly. Worth sharing? Of course.

my wife started a pregnant blog and has continued for over a year now. we've counted 7 blogs that directly credit her blog with the inspiration to start their own mommy blog. the current news is the news of our lives.